Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Grand Committee

Tabled by

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

3: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, after “payable” insert “after consultation with other United Kingdom legislatures”

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, having regard to the constructive and comprehensive debate we had in the first session of the Grand Committee, and because there is a very important amendment next in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, which I wish to support, I beg leave of the Committee to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment and intimated to the Clerks and to the previous Chairman that I wished to move this amendment. It is unfortunate that my noble and assiduous friend Lord Kirkwood—he is a friend—did not seek to move it. He has drafted it very well and I shall speak to it briefly because I know we have a very important amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and, indeed, many other important amendments coming up. But this amendment allows us to discuss at an early stage the implications of devolution in relation to the Bill. It also gives me an opportunity to raise an issue about devolution that applies to other Bills as well. Indeed, a lot of what I am saying about this Bill applies to them.

Unfortunately, because of devolution, we have had less consideration of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish business here in the United Kingdom Parliament. That has had some unfortunate consequences in Scotland that are causing political difficulties for some of us. It has now gone too far because the United Kingdom is still responsible for about half the identifiable public expenditure in Scotland, including welfare benefits, and for about half the legislation affecting Scotland, including this Welfare Bill. Yet we seldom discuss the implications for the devolved authorities because they have different arrangements for dealing with certain things, and I want briefly to mention one or two of them.

--- Later in debate ---

CTB has increased by 10 per cent this year due to the recession. Crucially, benefits have always been demand-led. To talk in technical language, they are under AME rather than DEL. If you wish to change the conditions, you do it by generalised changes to eligibility. No longer. The cake will be cut, allocated and carved up with each person’s CTB depending on how many other people in the locality are claiming CTB as well. Think about extending the same principle to JSA, so that whenever the factory closes and the claimant count goes up, individual JSA benefit would fall—and then say, as DCLG does, with breathtaking hypocrisy, that this level will support you because people on JSA will now be encouraged to seek work. That is what this does to CTB. Hence, I believe that CTB is not safe in the hands of DCLG. It will utterly destabilise universal credit. I am asking that it be brought within universal credit and therefore within DWP so that there will be a nationwide, predictable benefit taper that does what it says on the tin—rewards work and reduces risks—rather than undermining both, as this document does. Otherwise, why bother with this Bill? I beg to move.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I share the credit for Amendment 13 with my noble friend Lady Meacher. We always expect forensic analysis from the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and she has excelled herself this afternoon. I will take a slightly different approach because I do not think that there is anything much to add to the critique. I cannot understand where this came from. We are talking about single working-age benefits. To my certain knowledge, for 10 years, it has always been expected that any change of this kind would embrace council tax benefit. For me—I am in favour of universal credit—this is not a constructive step to take because, as the noble Baroness has just said, it diminishes the effectiveness of universal credit. It goes in the opposite direction—not to mention the fact that it will inevitably cost local authorities more, and not to mention the confusion and conflicts on tapers and capital limits.